Board

Sandra (Sandy) McQueen is a supervisor of student interns and student teachers in the Department of Early Childhood, College of Education and Human Development, Georgia State University. Her background includes teaching gifted and English language learners in the public schools, serving on the Board of Georgia Geography Alliance, facilitating the resettlement of refugees, being a Teacher at Sea for Semester at Sea, being a member of the Georgia Council of International Visitors, and serving in multiple positions at Rock Spring Presbyterian Church. She holds degrees from Presbyterian College, PSCE (now Union Presbyterian Seminary), and Georgia State University. Her Fulbright was in Thailand where she studied the role of women in Thai society. Her interests include fine arts, travel, and meeting people from all parts of the world.

Sandy McQueen

President

Brad K. Hounkpati Agricultural Engineer, he served as an Agricultural Engineer at Nouvelle Société Cotonnière du Togo (West Africa). Prior to his Fulbright experience, he was previously Technical Coordinator for Peace Corps Togo in Natural Resource Management Program. He has also served in many roles with organizations working to support agriculture in West Africa, including FAO, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Cashew Espoir Ltd., and Plant Resource Of Tropical Africa (PROTA).
In addition to Fulbright Scholarship, he had been awarded other prestigious awards such as: the WARA travel grant, The Norman E. Borlaug Leadership Enhancement in Agriculture Program (Borlaug LEAP) Fellowships Award, the Global Programs Graduate International Travel Award and the Graduate Travel Grant from the University of Georgia and nonetheless the U.E Brady Award. His pairs know him as networker or a “to-go person”.
Fulbright Fellow 2011-2013 at University of Georgia (UGA). He is currently serving as a Teaching Assistant in the Department of Entomology, UGA. Since 2011, he has been serving as the national contact for all Fulbright and Humphrey grantees from Togo. Inspired by his Fulbright experience, together with four other Togo Fulbright Alumni, he later created Grain de Sel Togo, Inc., a Georgian 501c3 organization to support underprivileged students in public universities in sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and other Fulbright scholars in the US. He is now serving as Vice President on the board.

Brad K. Hounkpati

Vice President

Dr. Amy Patterson completed her own Fulbright-funded research project in Mali. She has actively sought ways to continue her engagement with the Fulbright program and to advocate for the value of International exchange programs. Each year since 2009, Dr. Patterson has served as a mock grant reviewer for an intensive grant-writing workshop at Emory University which always includes participants preparing applications for Fulbright research grants. Providing these students with feedback on their draft Fulbright proposals, and providing additional mentorship to those who reach out after the workshop, are some of her most rewarding activities each year. Dr Patterson has served as a Fulbright committee member for students at Agnes Scott College, where she is on the faculty each year since 2013. Amy has led a series of workshops for Agnes Scott students interested in preparing research grants, and she has produced a webinar for research grant applicants. Dr. Patterson gave two oral presentations at the 2015 Annual Fulbright Association Conference, including an invited keynote address on malaria elimination in the Congo. While she has not had as much involvement with the Fulbright scholars who come to the US to study, Dr. Patterson has a strong interest in helping to create the best experience possible for those students. Her Bambara language instructor in Mali was later selected as a Fulbright Foreign Student who had a wonderful experience as a Fulbright student in the US – in large part because of the support he received from the Fulbright Association and the program they organized. Having benefitted so much myself from the warm reception and support of colleagues in Mali, Nigeria and Ethiopia throughout my career in Public Health, Dr. Patterson would love to be able to provide similar support to Fulbright scholars in the United States especially in the State of Georgia.

Amy Patterson

Secretary

Dr. Anne Richards was a Fulbright teaching fellow with the University of Sfax, Tunisia from 2006–2007; a Fulbright ambassador from 2010–2013; and a Fulbright specialist with the University of Mindanao, Philippines in 2014. She has served on her campus committee preparing students for Fulbright applications and is a reviewer for the Specialist Program in the areas of conflict management and American studies. Her stay in Tunisia led her to become interested in the subjects of Occidentalism and transnational Islam, and with Iraj Omidvar (Tunisia '07) she has published three scholarly collections on those topics. Anne hopes that she will be able to contribute to a welcoming environment for visiting Fulbrighters by helping to organize events and providing informal mentoring. As a former marketing director, she also looks forward to helping publicize the invaluable work the Fulbright program does in Georgia and around the world.

Anne Richards

Vice Secretary

In 2013/2014, Tamie Jovanelly was awarded a US Fulbright Research Scholar position at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. The roject titled: Conservation of Ugandan forests through the Water
Quality Index was funded by a National Geographic Society Conservation Trust Grant.
Since then, she has published related journal articles in the:
Journal of Public Health in Developing Countries (in press),
Journal of Water and Health: World Health Organization Press (2014),
Journal of Cave and Karst (2014),
and the Journal of Geoscience Education (2014).
Additionally, she received funding through a Rufford Foundation Conservation TrustGrant (2015)
that supported her research in Kenya. The project was titled: Critical, immediate, and
necessary improvements to endangered antelope habitat through water quality assessment.
Furthermore, Dr. Jovanelly has been leading annual undergraduate study abroad trips to
Tanzania, Italy, and Iceland since 2006. Running for her second term as Treasurer of the board

Tamie J Jovanelly

Treasurer

A Fulbright teaching fellow in Tunisia in 2007, Iraj has represented Kennesaw State University (KSU) at the Fulbright Association annual conferences and advised university students and faculty applicants to the Fulbright program. He is Associate Professor of English at KSU and was Director of the University Honors Program at Southern Polytechnic State University. Born in Iran, he has lived in Iran, Germany, and the United States. Iraj’s scholarship is transnational and interdisciplinary, straddling the humanities and social sciences. With Anne Richards (Tunisia ’06-07), he has edited Historic Engagements with Occidental Cultures, Religions, Powers (Palgrave 2014) and the two-volume Muslims and American Popular Culture (Praeger 2014). Iraj is interested in supporting and promoting Fulbright’s important mission of bringing scholars and students from around the world into productive contact and collaboration with each other.

Iraj Omidvar

Vice Treasurer

Dr. Marcia Jenkins has 40 years with public schools; 16 years as instructional technology coordinator in Gwinnett County schools, Classroom teacher for 24 years
And Online classes at technical college and face-to-face classes. Dr. Jenkins completed her Fulbright teacher exchange in Moscow, Russia, 1994. Dr. Jenkins was
President, Georgia Fulbright Chapter--2006-2008, and served on Georgia Fulbright Board. Marcia recently received birding certification in South Carolina and Georgia.

Marcia Jenkins

Advocacy Director

Dr. Monica Swahn is a Distinguished Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the School Public Health at Georgia State University. She currently serves as a Fulbright Scholar (flex rotations) in HIV prevention in the School of Public Health at the Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. Her key research priority as a Fulbright scholar has been to build research capacity for alcohol and drug research and to implement a new alcohol and drug research center at Makerere University. At Georgia State she teaches classes in global health and also conducts a study abroad program on alcohol and harm to Uganda. Her main research interests pertain to health-risk behaviors among youth and young adults (violence, HIV and alcohol use) and how they are linked, particularly in urban and vulnerable populations. She is also a self-proclaimed world citizen and a social entrepreneur. Monica’s contribution to the GA chapter would be to assist and organize events and exchange information for grantees and alumni, and could also possible enhance social media and visibility of the chapter. I am also a social entrepreneur and operate a business that support women in the slums of Kampala, Uganda so am in the process of learning a lot on social marketing etc…but that may or may not be helpful. Finally, would be glad to serve as a mentor for those interested in conducting global health research.

Monica Swahn

Vice Communication Officer

Carolyn Bero, served as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant to Madrid from 2013-2014 following her graduation from the University of Alabama. She taught Global Classrooms alongside English, Social Studies, and Science classes to students from age 11 to 14. Global Classrooms teaches global citizenship and public speaking skills and culminates in a Model United Nations conference for participating schools. Carolyn is currently based out of Atlanta working in Accenture’s management consulting practice. Carolyn is looking forward to volunteering with the Atlanta chapter of the Fulbright Association and welcoming grantees to Atlanta to our beautiful city. In the Spring 2017, she joined the Fulbright Georgia Chapter as new board member and will be coordinating events for grantees and alumni..

Carolyn Bero

Event Coordinator

Todd Harper is an Associate Professor of English at Kennesaw State University (KSU), where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the essay, argumentative writing, literacy, food writing, workplace writing, and the history of rhetoric. In 2003-2004, Dr. Harper taught and researched in Greece as a Fulbright-Hays Scholar. (He was the first faculty member in KSU’s history to receive this award.) From his semester in Greece, he published articles and presented research on the rhetorical nature of the Greek Orthodox liturgy, arguing that the liturgy, which pre-dates the printing press and widespread reading of the Bible and doctrinal texts, was designed to teach congregants the stories of the Bible as well as difficult theological concepts through ritual and iconography. Moreover, Dr. Harper became involved in KSU’s study abroad program, taking students to Greece, Turkey, and Italy. From 2013-2016, Dr. Harper was KSU’s first Director of KSU in Tuscany, a position he held to design study abroad programs at KSU’s new facility in Montepulciano and to encourage other faculty from across the university to do so. Finally, Dr. Harper has been involved in KSU’s Fulbright Gateway program, which welcomes and orientates students from outside the U.S. who have received Fulbright grants to study in the states.

Todd Harper

Deputy Event Coordinator

Dr. Paul Siegel was a Fulbright Teaching Fellow to the Russian Federation in 1999 and served on the Georgia Fulbright Board from 2008 through 2011. He has been a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) since 1988, where he currently serves as Deputy Associate Director for Science at the Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology and Laboratory Services. He is board-certified in Preventive Medicine, having completed his MD at Albany Medical College in 1981 and his Masters of Public Health degree in Epidemiology at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in 1988. He has conducted training in scientific writing for public health practitioners and epidemiologists at the national and international levels. Dr. Siegel speaks fluent French.

Paul Siegel

Alumni Events Coordinator

Sandra Jeffrey, studied Chinese at Johns Hopkins University/Nanjing University and she received a Rotary Scholarship to study in Taiwan. In 2011, she was awarded a Fulbright -Hays Scholarship to study at the Associated Colleges of China. After her studies, she remained in China taking private Chinese lessons. She was later hired as the executive director of a non-profit organization that provides scholarships to under-served high schools students to study in China. She lived in China until 2014 and relocated to Atlanta, GA. Prior to receiving the Fulbright Scholarship, she worked in New York City as an Attorney focusing on contract negotiations and real estate. Currently, she advises high school and college students interested in study abroad opportunities. In addition to her professional skills in law and international education, she is interested in sharing her overseas experiences with Fulbright students in the Atlanta area. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

Sandra Jeffrey

International Education

Dr. Frederick D. Quinn, Athletic Association Professor of Infectious Diseases and Department Head at the University of Georgia. Dr. Quinn received his BS from Marquette University, PhD in Microbiology and Biochemistry from Indiana University, Bloomington and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University. Subsequently, Dr. Quinn oversaw several laboratory groups at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta investigating bacterial disease outbreaks including Brazilian Purpuric Fever, Cat Scratch Disease, meningococcal meningitis, Buruli ulcer, and ultimately tuberculosis (TB). Prior to accepting the position at UGA, Dr. Quinn became the first CDC employee to complete a Fulbright Fellowship studying TB pathogenesis at the University of Bristol in Great Britain. That Fellowship program changed Dr. Quinn’s research focus, and thus in early 2002, he became Professor and Head of the Department of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology (now Infectious Diseases) in the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Georgia, Athens. The department currently is comprised of 50 faculty members, and over 120 research fellows, students and support personnel who study host-microbial interactions, and develop appropriate animal models, vaccine candidates, diagnostic tests and novel therapies for many parasitic, viral and bacterial human and veterinary emerging and zoonotic infectious diseases. His research focuses on understanding the pathogenesis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, with the ultimate goal of developing improved vaccines and diagnostic tests for TB. Current collaborative activities include TB vaccine animal efficacy testing, animal model development for TB transmission, TB human social networking and zoonotic and animal transmission studies in Africa.

Fred Quinn

International Education

Colombian Fulbrighter, BS and MS in Chemical Engineering at Universidad Nacional de Colombia, currently a PhD student at Georgia Institute of Technology since fall 2016. As a member of the Fulbright Student Association at Georgia Tech since fall 2017, Francisco has participated in planning and organizing activities to connect fellow Fulbrighters to one another, and to make the scholars and the Fulbright program more visible at Georgia Institute of Technology. Being part of the Fulbright GA Chapter brings the opportunity to connect current Fulbrighters at Georgia Tech with fellow Fulbrighters and alumni from all around Georgia. Through activities such as conferences and talks, these connections can foster the professional and academic development and can also spread the mission of the Fulbright program to a bigger audience

Francisco Javier Quinterocortes

Students Representative

Zipangani M. Vokhiwa, Associate Professor of Science at Mercer University since 2007. Served as Project Director for Mercer’s Fulbright Hays Group Projects Abroad Program to Malawi – 2012/2014. Team Leader for Mercer on Mission to Malawi, led students on three service learning projects to Malawi in summer 2010, 2011 and 2013. Assistant Professor of Biology at Kennesaw State University, 2003- 2007. Regional Director & Representative for Southern Africa for the Wild Wide Fund for Nature International, posted to Harare, Zimbabwe -2000/2001 to manage the Southern Africa region’s conservation program. Served the Government of Malawi as Deputy Director of Environmental Affairs -1992/1999, worked on United Nations programs on conservation and sustainable development under the banner of Agenda 21 and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) operationalizing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). After his second term on board, he is now serving as ex-officio